


forever is as long as we can make it

by warsfeil



Category: Ensemble Stars! (Video Game)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-24
Updated: 2017-11-24
Packaged: 2019-02-06 06:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,249
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12811263
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/warsfeil/pseuds/warsfeil
Summary: Technically speaking, Eichi is too old to be having sleepovers, but he spent most of his youth in isolation rooms at the hospital or sequestered away from the world. He likes to think of it as making up for lost time, and, really, it isn’t as though any of the servants are going to tell him otherwise. At any rate, it’s only half the sort of sleepover he would have had as a child, given there’s far less candy than a younger version of himself would have wanted, and far more boyfriend than he would have foreseen.





	forever is as long as we can make it

**Author's Note:**

> i'm writing gratuitous fluff for friends for thanksgiving to express my adoration for all of them. i told myself i was going to write 100 words. w h o o p s.
> 
> enjoy some cavity inducing wataei! i haven't edited this in the slightest so i'm sorry for any errors. _this was meant to be a drabble_.

Technically speaking, Eichi is too old to be having sleepovers, but he spent most of his youth in isolation rooms at the hospital or sequestered away from the world. He likes to think of it as making up for lost time, and, really, it isn’t as though any of the servants are going to tell him otherwise. At any rate, it’s only half the sort of sleepover he would have had as a child, given there’s far less candy than a younger version of himself would have wanted, and far more boyfriend than he would have foreseen. 

Eichi winds the long strands of Wataru’s hair around his finger as he gazes at the black and white movie playing on the television. He’s only half-paying attention – he’s more than had his fill of Showa era films when pain kept him up and there was nothing else to watch – but he thinks it’s a romance. 

“He’s not very charming, is he,” Eichi murmurs, folding strand over strand of silky hair to form an inexpertly done braid. He’s _trying_ , but Wataru’s hair is practically sentient in its desire to disobey him. 

“If you think so, then I’ll have to be sure to never act like him,” Wataru responds from his position on the floor, leaning his head back to glance at Eichi. Eichi doesn’t think Wataru is watching the movie any more than he is, not when Wataru has what appears to be three entirely different decks of cards in his hands. “So that I may never be anything less than charming!” 

“You couldn’t be less than charming if you tried,” Eichi replies, easily, because it’s the truth, when it comes to how he views Wataru. He was smitten long before he got to meet him, and it hasn’t waned in the slightest. “That isn’t a challenge, by the way.”

From the glint in Wataru’s eyes, Eichi thinks that he was _absolutely_ going to take it as a challenge. Wataru opens his mouth, and Eichi tugs lightly on the poorly formed braid, leaning down to kiss Wataru before he can say whatever it was he was about to say. The angle is awkward, so the kiss is barely more than a brief contact, but Wataru’s lips are warm under Eichi’s, and he lingers longer than he should.

When he pulls back, Wataru is still gazing at him, head tilted back onto the starry periwinkle of Eichi’s pajama-clad knees, and Eichi’s stomach does that particular flop that it does whenever Wataru looks at him.

Wataru reaches up, his cards having vanished somewhere that Eichi can’t begin to discern (his sleeve would be too obvious, it can’t be that easy when it’s Wataru), and slides his hand back along Eichi’s chin, up his cheek. Wataru’s hands are as warm as his lips, as warm as all of him. 

“I’ll be yours until the day you say otherwise,” Wataru says. It’s a future that Eichi can’t imagine in his wildest dreams. Something he doesn’t want to see even in his worst nightmares. 

Eichi lets go of his grip on Wataru’s hair – it wasn’t as though the braid was going to stay, anyway – so that he can reach up, entwine his fingers in Wataru’s, and pull his hand down to press a kiss to the back of it.

“Then you’ll be my Hibiki Wataru forever,” Eichi murmurs against the warmth of Wataru’s skin. 

Forever doesn’t feel like very long, when Eichi has spent most of his young life staring down his own mortality. He was told he wouldn’t live to see his first birthday, he was told he wouldn’t live to see middle school, he was told he’d be lucky to see his high school graduation. Every line they’ve set for him, Eichi has pushed past with a stubborn refusal to die, desperate to achieve his goals before his body gave out on him. Now he has them – he has Wataru, he has _fine_ , he has more friends than the lonely child huddled under hospital blankets could ever have dreamed of – and forever feels like it might end tomorrow.

“Yes,” Wataru agrees, and it’s gratifying to hear the softness in his own voice. For all that Wataru postures, Eichi loves this side of him more than he thinks Wataru could ever know. The honesty inside of Wataru, the insecurity laid bare. “Your Hibiki Wataru.”

They are both small children reliving a childhood that neither of them had, desperately clinging to each other in the hope of abating the endless tide of loneliness that nearly swallowed them both. 

Eichi reaches down, lets his hands fall onto Wataru’s shoulders, slip across the soft fabric of the pajamas Eichi had let him “borrow”. Wataru had graciously not commented on the fact that they were a soft lilac to match his eyes, or exactly in his size, or on the fact that Eichi would obviously be sending them home with Wataru. 

“Then, my Hibiki Wataru, won’t you come up here to watch the rest of the movie with me?” Eichi asks. He doesn’t care in the slightest about the movie, but watching it with Wataru, with the warmth of Wataru’s arms around him – ahh, he doesn’t think he could possibly turn down that. 

“Of course! If that’s what my emperor wants, then I’m happy to oblige!” Wataru’s voice is back to being grandiose and performative, even for his audience of one single person. Wataru moves up onto the bed, the braid falling out of his hair exactly as quickly as Eichi thought it would. Eichi gives the back of Wataru’s head a particularly disparaging look before wiping it off his face in favor of a smile at Wataru. 

“Lean back,” Eichi instructs, and Wataru does, obediently leaning back against Eichi’s feather pillows. Eichi nestles himself back into Wataru’s lap before he can begin to second guess himself – Wataru is warm and Wataru is _his_ and what are boyfriend sleepovers for, if not cuddling? – and tries to keep the flush from his face when Wataru wraps his arms around Eichi.

Wataru flicks his wrist, and Eichi expects a flower and is instead treated to an old stuffed cat that he _thought_ he’d managed to successfully hide underneath his pillows.

“Ah,” Eichi says, accepting the cat and quickly smuggling it underneath the blanket. He shouldn’t be surprised that Wataru found it, or that Wataru presented it to him, but he can’t quite prevent the embarrassment. That thing had been through multiple hospital stays and several antibacterial baths; to say it had seen better days was an understatement. 

“Hoho, have I surprised you?” Wataru asks, and Eichi coils his hand into the fabric of Wataru’s shirt, tucking his head under Wataru’s head in an attempt to pretend that he isn’t embarrassed of a stuffed cat or of the fact that Wataru’s embrace is even warmer than he’d anticipated. 

“You always surprise me.”

Wataru’s _amazing!_ is a bit softer than usual, his volume thoughtfully lowered even though there aren’t any servants in Eichi’s wing of the house at this hour. 

It definitely feels like a proper sleepover, Eichi thinks, now that he has the old cat. Wataru’s arms are warm around him, and he can hear his heartbeat. He reaches out to twine Wataru’s stubborn, silky hair around his fingers as he lets his attention fall back onto the movie playing on the television.

Wataru presses a kiss to the top of Eichi’s head, and Eichi hopes that forever lasts a very long time.


End file.
